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In Prosperous Days. 



HOW TWO OmiS T(R1E^ 
FA^MIJ^G. 



[Originally published m the ATLANTIC Monthly /c?^ 
February, 1875 ; here given with amplifications a7id 
additions^ 



■BIT 

Dorothea Alice Shepherd, pseud, '^t 






\-.>^. 1879. ^^^^y 



BOSTON: 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

FRANKLIN STREET, CORNER OF HAWLEY. 









COPYRIGHT, 

1879, 
By D. LoTHROP & Co, 



HOW TWO GIRLS TRIED 
FARMING. 




DOROTHEA Alice Shepherd and 
Louise Burney v. Fate. 
Yes, that was the way the case 
stood. We were making the fight. 

I confess that we often wonder now 
that we dared. But success is always 
more or less enervating. Our needs 
gave us requisite intensity then. 

I suppose Fate and Folks thought 



7 



8 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

we were very well off as we were — 
Louise as housemaid in a country 
family where she was " as good as any- 
body," and I as district school-teacher ; at 
least, I know that in the first of the strug- 
gle the sympathy was all on the wrong 
side. It is a very fine thing, now that 
we have succeeded; but there were days 
and times when — well, never mind! it 
is little matter since we have succeeded ; 
since we have accomplished nearly every- 
thing which they predicted we never 
could do. 

Still, just here I must set it down 
that no woman ever encouraged us in 
our various plans for change and bet- 
ter times. The men to whom we talked 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, g 

smiled weakly and said little — I suppose 
they considered us hardly worth dis- 
couraging. But women actively discour- 
aged us. It was not our fortune to 
meet any who were essaying independ- 
ence for the sake of the theory, but 
only those who were trying to earn a 
living. Of these, the most experienced 
and the most courageous, when we con- 
fided to them the plan which we finally 
carried into execution, gravely advised 
abandonment. Whenever it came to a 
face-to-face talk with those women who 
had experimented in business, whom the 
outside world looked upon as success- 
ful, they, every one, confessed to a sort 
of heartsick weariness. We found not 



10 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

one who held up her own example and 
experience for our admiration and hope. 
We found not one who recommended 
to us her own way of earning a 
living. 

" It costs all it comes to," said each 
and every one. 

Those in salaried positions were the 
cheeriest, wore the fewest care-lines on 
forehead and cheek. 

We found no woman feeling comforta- 
ble over an investment of money, except- 
ine in cases where the business was in- 
telligently "kept small," kept within the 
limits where the proprietor herself could 
perform the labor, or nearly all, thus 
paying out little or none of the profit to 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. ii 

employees. These safe-going persons 
were continually " taking stock," and bal- 
anced their books every Saturday. 

We found fewr speculators ; women who 
dared borrow capital and flaunt a showy 
business on the strength of a man's in- 
stinctive belief that " business must 
brighten soon." 

These investigations upset for us many 
an ideal possibility in " trade." 

"Don't invest in fine goods — don't 
trade on the 'innate love of the beauti- 
ful,'" very earnestly said one woman to 
us, a woman whom we had long ob- 
served and envied. 

A year later her chromos and portfo- 
lios of fine engravings, the water col- 



12 Hozu Two Girls Tried Farming. 

ors and the art needlework which she 
had hopefully and helpfully bought from 
white-handed toilers, the costly illustrated 
gift-books, the inlaid cabinets and the 
beautiful carvinG^s which had made her 
store the loveliest lounging place in the 
little town, were sold for twenty-five 

cents on the dollar. 

" I keep showy goods, but not fine 
ones," said another — one of the half- 
dozen prosperous tradewomen I know — 
the proprietor of a fancy goods store. 
" I buy for the small every day happen-to- 
needs of the household. The ladies who 
wear fine crepe lisse and real silk rib- 
bons would hardly buy at my store — no 
matter how good ni}' wares. It is safer 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. rj 

to keep store for that class of customers 
who are paid wages every Saturday- 
night." 

She is fully persuaded that were she to 
go into handsome, spacious quarters, and 
full-stock her counters and shelves after 
her own aesthetic ideas she would "fail 
up" before the close of the year. 

Said another, more easy, more heart- 
less, more happy-go-lucky than the others, 
" I am going to sell out — make a 
change. I have had a good time so far, 
but I know better than to go on. I 
should break sooner or later ! " 

Lou and I now know — nay, we hear 
rather — of women who have succeeded 
in active business ; but at the time of 



/^ How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

our own struggling forth all we could 
learn of any woman's experiment in in- 
dependence was depressing. 

So, as I said before, I wonder that 
we dared. 

People who have become interested 
in us since our success say that Lou 
and I are each the other's complement. 

Perhaps. We are wholly unlike, yet 
agree and lean upon each other. 

Ever since we were tiny school-girls 
we had owned in joint proprietorship 
many Spanish castles, where we largely 
lived when together, as neither of us 
had any other bona-fide home. But the 
time came when, instead of reading and 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 75 

romancing together, we spent our leis- 
ure hours in scolding over our lot. I 
suppose, indeed, that had we been mem- 
bers of the International, or of a Com- 
mune, instead of a pair of harmless Yan- 
kee village girls, we could not have dis- 
cussed the problems of work and prop- 
erty much more fiercely than we did. 
Only I don't think we ever thought we 
had a right in other people's property. 
Even to us two simple girls it would 
have seemed an absurdity that one 
should reason he had a right to what 
another had lawfully gained or inherited. 
But we did want a home; we did 
want to be our own mistresses ; we did 
want some means of living that should 



1 6 How Two Girls Tried Farmiiig. 

be independent of the caprices, the Hkes 
and dislikes, and the varying fortunes 
of others. And to us this seemed lit- 
tle, something that should be simple 
of getting, not overmuch to beseech of 
Fortune, to demand confidently of Fate. 
But I am bound to confess that, al- 
though we read everything we could 
find on the subject of Labor, and made 
constant inquiry relative to every occu- 
pation we had known women to under- 
take, at last, turning from every one of 
the traditional industries of our sex, find- 
ing all those ancient avenues crowded, 
it was a very long time before we could 
discuss our own future without, at each 
interview, going through with a certain 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. ij 

amount of day dreaming — perhaps wo- 
men do not easily distinguish between 
planning and wishing. I think Louise 
believed she was planning whenever she 
said afresh what she already had said a 
hundred times : 

" I should prefer something that would 
take us among books, shouldn't you, 
Dolly ? If we only had money we would 
begin a little store : books on one side 
with a nice news counter, and on the 
other side bottles and drugs. Don't you 
think so, Dolly, some day } " 

Whereupon Dolly, also for the hun- 
dredth time, would remind her of the 
two ladies, tired-out teachers, who were 
doing just that ; and then she would 



1 8 How Two Girls Tried Far mmg. 

also go on to speak of the amount of 
debt incurred in addition to the capital 
invested. 

Then becoming practical in her des- 
peration, Louise would resolve she must 
save up her wages and educate herself 
as a teacher of mathematics, while I 
should perfect my French and drawing. 

"If I could, don't you think we might 
get hired in the same school, Dolly.?" 

Mathematics ! my poor Louise ! when 
there always has been something the 
matter with her head where figures are 
concerned. When she sets the basket 
of eggs in the wagon I always inquire 
if the " little pencil " is in the pocket- 
book. It always is, for — careful little 



How Two Girls Tried Farmi7ig. ig 

soul — she wouldn't be the one to peril 
our precious gains by trusting to a men- 
tal calculation of eleven dozens at thir- 
teen cents per dozen. 

But, finally, when a good plan and 
capital to carry it out both seemed im- 
possible, Fate relented and both the plan 
and the capital suddenly *' turned up." 

A maiden sister of Louise, who as 
housekeeper had saved up eight hundred 
dollars, died and left the sum intact " to 
us," as Louise was pleased to say. And 
one day soon after, she laid down the 
New York Tribune and said : 

" Let us go West ! " 

It was meant as a merry jest; but it 
was a breeze to blow the tendril of a 



20 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

hitherto vague fancy of mine round a 
'' happy thought " which I now know 
many other women have tried to clam- 
ber up by. 

" Lou, why not ? " I exclaimed at once. 
" Why not go West and buy a bit of 
land and raise small fruits for the mar- 
kets ? " 

In a few moments we had talked our- 
selves brave and eager — not so much 
over the work as over the happiness — 
the plan presenting itself to us as idyl, 
pastoral, holiday, picnic. 

" That would be home and independ- 
ence beyond any of the other plans," 
said Lou, who, even more than I, hated 
"the third person." "Just you and I, 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 21 

and nobody to deal with but Dame 
Nature ! " 

I went back to my boarding-place. I 
read and reflected. Unfortunately, for 
our project, I had a genius for details 
and now it came into baleful activity. I 
stayed away from Louise and made fig- 
ures on the back of a letter I had in 
my pocket until there was not a shred 
of our bright plan left. Friday she sent 
me a note, and Saturday night I went 
to her. 

She took me up into her room, turned 
me round, looked me attentively in the 
face. 

" Dolly," said she at last, *' what have 



22 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

you turned down the lights for ? Aren't 
we two girls going out West to raise 
small fruits ; or did I dream it ? " 

"Lou," I said, " have you any idea how 
long it takes to bring strawberries into 
profitable bearing, and raspberries too ? " 

" I believe strawberries bear in June, 
and raspberries some time in July — 
why ? " answered she innocently. " I sup- 
pose we should set them early in spring." 

" Lou Burney, we should have to wait 
as good as two years ! " I cried. " Yes 
and then, unless we were supernaturally 
early in market, the bulk of our crops 
would go at ten cents per quart. I've 
searched market reports through old 
papers until I'm perfectly certain the 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 2j 

markets everywhere — everywhere, Lou 
Burney — must be overstocked. I am 
convinced that it is not safe to stake 
our interests in such an enterprise. 
We should have to produce enormous 
crops to make it a business worth while. 
And it isn't hkely two ignorant girls 
could do that — at least not at first; 
and since, meantime, the two ignorant 
girls must live, they had better beware." 
"Oh, Dolly!" Lou gasped at last. 
"Do you mean to s^y all our talk the 
other night has gone for nothing .? And 
you were so sure! How could you.?" 
" I hope you don't blame me for look- 
ing round," I replied, rather crossly. 
"One of us, at least, should be capable 



24 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

of that." Indeed, I was as sorely hurt 
as she, for it was the very first plan over 
which I had felt any enthusiasm, any 
hope. 

" But you had not the right to be 
sure, if you were not sure," she persis- 
ted. " You know how I depend on 
you, Dolly," she added pathetically, " you 
know that when you say anything is 
so I never inquire into it at all ! " 

All of which was true. 

I could say nothing. She went on 
regretfully : 

" Dolly, I do believe I'd rather 
we hadn't found out, and gone on, 
and tried it. It was such a nice plan: 
you and I with a house of our own — 



How Two Girls Tried Inarming. 25 

it was next thing to being birds and 
living in a nest. Yes, 1 would rather 
have tried it, and lived so a while 
even if we failed at last. Oh, Dolly, 
can't we after all ? It couldn't take 
much just for you and me — just two 
girls ; how could it '^ " she went on 
eagerly, and still more eagerly. " For 
you know we shouldn't live like a great 
family — just two girls, Dolly. Those 
three great regulation meals that always 
must be prepared in a family — a fam- 
ily you know, where there are men — 
of course that costs. Of course I admit 
that we couldn't control the cost at all, if 
we were so situated. But we shouldn't 
be situated so, Dolly — no, thank Heaven, 



26 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

there is no man in our plan with his 
regularly-recurring hunger ! You know, 
Dolly, if you will only think, that half 
the time we should have just a bowl 
of bread and milk for dinner ! and what 
would that cost ? — why, next to nothing. 
And when we didn't want supper — 
half the time, Dolly, I don't care for 
any supper at all — why we'd omit 
supper entirely — we could if there was 
no man about. Don't you see, Dolly 
dear, that it couldnt cost for two girls 
like a family, a real family ? " 

There was something in what Lou 
said — and still there wasn't. I told her 
folks averaged about alike in their needs, 
and what we didn't consume one day, 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 2j 

we must the next, and that I felt sure 
the cost of food for a household of 
women would be about the same as for 
the mixed family. 

" Well, then, how much would it take, 
anyhow ? " said she, with a little frown 
between her golden brows. " I don't 
credit a word of it that it would cost 
as much as if we were a real family 
going to housekeping. Just think how 
little I ate for breakfast this very morn- 
ing — a slice of bread and butter, an 
^gg' a cup of coffee — six cents, may 
be — three times six are eighteen cents — 
seven times eighteen cents are seven 
times eight are fifty-six, and seven times 
one are seven and five to carry — 



28 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

well, about a dollar and a quarter — 
mercy ! how boarding-houses must make 
money ! " 

Here she paused for breath, and I 
reminded her that she was probably to 
have roast beef for dinner, and would 
need and have a steak for the morrow's 
breakfast, and that her figures were not 
correct, any way. 

" But never mind," said I, " we will as- 
sume that for one day it couldn't cost 
much. Have you any idea what it is 

said to cost one person one year.^^" 

" No, Dolly, I haven't, that I know of. 
But you have, I see. I understand that 
look; you're going to bear down on me 
now with a column of figures ! " 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, zg 

Yes, I was. In my pocket I had a 
newspaper slip whose figures and sta- 
tistics might well deter one from waiting 
for berries to grow, It was a compila- 
tion from the Report of some Labor Com- 
mission, giving the average cost of living 
of the individuals of ordinary families: 

One hundred and thirty-two dollars 
and thirty-three cents. 

*' Two hundred and sixty-four dollars 
and sixty-six cents ! " she exclaimed, after 
some figuring. " Well, D0II3V she added, 
with a sigh, " we couldn't live while we 
waited, if this is correct. The berry plan 
must be for women who have something 
to subsist them while they wait ; we ought 
to have something to sell right away." 



JO How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

She took up the slip again, and thought- 
fully looked over the items. 

" How much the small things cost ! 
those which people who have them never 
count among the expenses of living — 
milk and eggs and butter and vegetables. 
I fear I was thinking of only meats 
and flour, and groceries, as the things 
that must be bought. To accomplish 
anything, we ought some way to have 
all such things without buying, as, of 
course, farmers' families do. Dear me, 
Dolly, we couldn't for we should have 
nothing in the world left after we bought 
any sort of a place, while, of course, we 
should need to have some money to 
use right along every day. I fear this 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, ji 

plan will have to go with the rest. I wish 
we knew how the women who have done 
such great things with berries managed 
while they were waiting for their fruit 
to come into bearing. Nobody ever 
seems to tell that part of it. ' Why don't 
you say something, Dolly } ' " she asked, 
turning on me suddenly. 

" I can't. Not now. I'm thinking. I'll 
come again in three days. Then, I be- 
lieve — I believe that perhaps I shall have 
plenty to say." 

Lou caught me by both hands. 

" You mean things when you look like 
this, Dolly Shepherd ; what is it ? " 

But I broke away from her, not letting 
too much hope creep into my smile, 



J2 How Two Girls Tried Far mmg, 

either. Yet, I felt that now I really had 
seized upon what Castelar calls " the 
Saving Idea." Remember, I was wholly 
ignorant then of the fact that here and 
there a brave, strong-brained woman — 
many in the aggregate — was doing this 
same thing successfully. I say strong- 
brained, because no flippant woman can 
succeed in the management of a farm. 
It requires far clearer and steadier fore- 
sight than to buy^ and sell successfully. 
Only the born woman of affairs may 
safely adventure in this direction. I have 
met not one of these women-farmers ; but 
I dare to say they are all good logi- 
cians, though perhaps slow in mental 
movement, whom no sophistry can mis- 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, jj 

lead, who are never to be diverted from 
the main purpose. 

But I would not tell Lou. I meant to 
dissect this flash. I would study it in 
detail. Just at present my mind was in 
confusion with my thoughts all circling 
round this central idea : 

Could we go West and buy a farm^ a 
real farm, a ma^is farm ? 

It was a startling thought to me — 
it might well be to a young woman 
who never had planted a hill of corn, 
or hoed a row of potatoes in her life, 
and who had a hacking cough, and a 
pain in her side. Still I felt strangely 
daring, since out-of-door life was of course 
what I needed physically ; and home, and 



j^ How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

freedom from anxiety concerning my daily 
bread, certainly could not retard the cure. 
For the first time I could find a certain 
good in the fact that I was all alone in 
the world. There was nobody, either for 
Lou or for me, to interfere with our devot- 
ing ourselves to the solution of a problem. 
If we failed, there was nobody to be 
sorry or mortified. 

Louise did not wait for my mysterious 
three days to expire. The afternoon of 
the second she came down to the school- 
house. It was just after I had " dis- 
missed." 

"Now, Miss Dolly Shepherd!" de- 
manded she. 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, J5 

Well, I had gone through the new 
plan in detail, had thought and thought, 
read and read, had found there was no 
sex in brains; for out of the mass of 
agricultural reading I saw that even I, 
should I have the strength, could in 
one way or another reduce whatever 
was pertinent to practice. I resolutely- 
had cast money-making out of the plan, 
but I believed we could raise enough 
for our own needs ; and I had thought, 
" Oh, Lou Burney, if we should be able 
to establish the fact that women can 
buy land and make themselves a home, 
just as men do, what a ministry of 
hope even our humble lives may be- 
come ! " 



36 How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, 

In my earnestness I had tried vari- 
ous absurd little experiments. In my 
out-of-door strolls I think I had man- 
aged to come upon every farming im- 
plement upon the place. Out of obser- 
vation, I had lifted, dragged, turned, 
flourished, and pounded. I had pro- 
nounced most of them as manageable 
by feminine muscle as the heavy ket- 
tles, washing machines, mattresses, and 
carpets that belong to a woman's in- 
door work. I had hoed a few stray 
weeds back of the tool-house, a mullein 
and a burdock (which throve finely there- 
after), and found it as easy as sweep- 
ing, and far daintier to do than dinner- 
dish-washing — and none of it was to 




Dolly tests her strength. 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. jg 

be done " over the stove ! " To be sure 
there was the hot sun, but there was 
also the fresh air. 

I felt prepared to talk. 

"Well, Lou," I said, "we will try 
the out-of-doors plan, and very much as 
we at first talked. We will even have 
some berries. Only we will from the 
very first make our daily bread and 
butter the chief matter, and just do 
whatever else we can, meanwhile. I don't 
see, no more than you, how these women 
who have done so well with fruit-raising 
managed whilst. But this is the way / 
have planned for us for whom there 
shall be no dreary whilst, as we will be- 
gin at once : 



40 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

" We will take our moneys " — I had 
three hundred of my own — " and go 
up into the great Northwest and make 
the best bargain we can for a little farm, 
which, "however, shall be as big as pos- 
sible, for from the very beginning we 
must keep a horse and a cow, and a pig, 
and some hens. Don't open your eyes 
so wide, dear — I got it all from you. 
It is your own idea — I have only put it 
in practical working order. 

" Keeping a cow, you know, will en- 
able us to easily keep the pig; so keep- 
ing the cow means smoked ham and 
sausage for our table, our lard, our milk, 
our cream and our butter. As you said, 
we must either have such things, or else 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. 41 

have something to sell right away. 
There will also be, as I have planned 
it, butter, eggs, and poultry with which 
to procure groceries, grains, and sundries. 
There will also be, in the winter, a sur- 
plus of pork to sell. We shall also raise 
some vegetables. We can also the first 
year grow corn to keep our animals, 
and for brown bread for ourselves. We 
will, among the first things we do, set 
out an orchard and a grape arbor, make 
an asparagus bed, and have a row of 
bee-hives. Meanwhile, having thus se- 
cured the means of daily life, I have 
other and greater plans for a comforta- 
ble old age." 

These I also disclosed. She made no 



42 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

comment upon them, but reverted gravely 
to the animals. 

" I should think we might do it all, 
Dolly, only the horse ; do we need a 
horse ? Be sure now, Dolly, for a horse 
would be a great undertaking. You 
know we would have to keep a nice 
one if we kept any, not such a one as 
women in comic pictures always drive. 
Be very sure, now, Dolly." 

" I am. For we must cultivate our 
own corn and potatoes. I can see that 
in small farming, hiring labor would cost 
all the things would come to, just as 
business women have told us it is in 
other work, you know. Besides, how 
could we ever get to mill, or church, or 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, ^j 

store? Only by catching rides; our 
neighbors would soon hate us." 

" And who would drive ? " asked Lou. 

I paused. 

" You would have to, I suppose," I 
said at last. I felt she could; and I 
also felt that I couldn't. 

Lou nodded. 

" Yes, because you will have to be 
the one to go to the neighbors to bor- 
row things," she said, as if balancing our 
accounts. 

" We shall live within ourselves," said 
L " What we don't have we will go 
without." 

Lou said there would be some com- 
fort in that kind of being poor, and 



44 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

grew jolly and care-free presently, and 
said " we would go at once." 

Accord ngiy, we came up into Michi- 
gan, to cousin Janet's. Making her hos- 
pitable house our head-quarters, we pro- 
ceeded to " look land " like other Eastern 
capitalists : that is, cousin Janet's hus- 
band took us in his light wagon to see 
every farm that was for sale within ten 
miles. And it was such fun — we little 
midgets to go tripping over magnificent 
estates of two or three hundred acres, 
and spying about, with only a thousand 
dollars in our pockets ! 

Of course, they might have known we 
could not buy them ; and we did think, 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, ^5 

so long as we were " only two girls," 
that there was no need for such wide- 
spread consternation when we finally 
made our choice. However, Lou and 
I were of one mind. Cousin Janet and 
her husband had anxiously shown us 
various snug little village houses with 
an acre of ground attached, but we had 
resolved to keep ourselves to the plan 
of " mixed farming ; " and when the 
whole of that rubbishy, neglected thirty- 
five acres was offered to us by its non- 
resident owner for a sum quite inside 
our means, instead of turning up our 
noses at it, we felt it to be a bit of 
outspoken friendliness on the part of 
Providence ; and to the astonishment of 



46 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

the neighborhood, instead of "haggling," 
and " beating down," and innumerable 
conversations, man fashion, we bought it 
without delay, at the very first interview. 

But, somehow, we have been obliged 
thus to rely, almost wholly, upon our 
own judgment from the beginning — so 
many things which we lack are neces- 
sary in order to carry out a man's advice : 
money, strength, hired men, horses. Still 
we believe that these very lacks, com- 
pelling us as they have to certain close 
economies and calculations, and to care- 
ful studies of first principles, have helped 
us to our success — a success which has 
not " cost all it come to." 

Our scraggy acres were a contrast, to 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. ^7 

be sure, to the handsome orchards and 
wheat fields we had visited, and also to 
the tolerably well-tilled farms on either 
side of us. But from the day on which 
we " drew writings," Lou and I never 
have looked upon the spot without see- 
ing it, not only as it is, but as what it 
is to become, and is becoming. Every 
stone picked up, every fence corner 
cleared, every piece of thorough plowing, 
every rod of fence built, every foot of 
trellis, every rose-bush and grape-vine and 
shade-tree planted, has been to us as one 
brush-stroke more upon the fair idyllic 
picture we saw in the beginning. 

On our way home from the village 
lawyer's we again passed our place. 



^f8 How Two Girls Tried Farmhig, 

John, rather maliciously, asked if we 
would not like to look at it " as a 
whole." We assured him, with dignity, 
that we should, and he stopped the 
team. 

" As a whole " it was a narrow, hilly 
stretch weakly outlined by a skeleton of 
a fence ; a forbidding surface of old 
stubble ground and wild turf, the distant 
hill-toj)s crowned with tall mulleins. 
There was not a vSprig of clover on the 
place, and though there was an old 
brown house and barn, there was not an 
orchard tree, nor a reminiscence of 
garden. 

We sighed, not that our farm was wild 
and neglected, but that even the outer 



How Tzuo Girls Tried Farming, ^g 

aspect told such a black tale of impov- 
ishment and robbery. 

Cousin John discoursed again of the 
poor soil as we sat there. He warned 
us that we could never expect to raise 
wheat. Wheat ! I had seen little save 
wheat since we came into the State. 
I didn't believe in so much wheat, on 
account of certain principles in chemis- 
try, and I told him so ; and left him 
to laugh at my " school-ma'am farming " 
while I jumped out and crept through 
the bars, and ran up to make sure the 
old house was locked. What an old 
house ! It was growing dear to us al- 
ready, as being our very own : but in 
reality it was as brown and straggling, 



50 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

as lonely and unpicturesque, as a last- 
year's nest 

— " torn with stones and rain." 

With a strange new sense of secur- 
ity from the ups and downs of life, 
which only the possession of a bit of 
real estate can give one, we flitted away 
to prepare to come again to our own 
in the spring, with the first robin. 

I went back to cousin Janet's and 
hired out, not to her, but to cousin 
John; while Louise took up her old 
business of housework at a wealthy far- 
mer's near us — cheerily, both of us. 

We had paid for our farm — and just 
here I would earnestly advise that no 
woman undertake what a man often 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 5/ 

does — and sometimes successfully — the 
purchase of a farm on credit, calculat- 
ing to "make it pay for itself;" for in 
nine cases out of ten the frequent 
man's luck will also be hers — she will 
have paid in all her capital, and she 
will slave and stint to "keep up the 
interest " on the balance of the price- 
money, she will go on doing so for 
two, three, or four years, the money she 
may make all going in that direction, 
instead of being used for " improvements," 
her farm probably becoming impover- 
ished each year, until at last the land 
returns to its owner on "foreclosure of 
mortgage," all her toil and struggling 
counting for nothing, in company with 



^2 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

the portion of purchase-money paid in 
at the first ; and a woman's courage and 
a woman's physical strength will hardly 
renew themselves, as in the man's case, 
to begin afresh. 

Well, as I said, we had paid for our 
farm, and there remained to us funds 
for the purchase of horse, wagon, and 
cow. Lou, being supposed coolest in 
case of fire, took charge of the precious 
deed, and of the money, promising to 
add thereto, before spring, fifty dollars. 

" And that," said she sunnily, " will buy 
your clover seed, Dolly." 

" But you know you believe in clover, 
Lou, and the cows and sheep ? " 

It was something to shoulder alone 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 5J 

the responsibility of my theories since 
they were to be carried out by the aid 
of another's earnings. 

" O, yes, dear Dolly, if you are certain 
you do," Lou answered, cheerily. 

I really was pretty certain. 

Lou had her two dollars each week. 
What I earned was twelve dollars per 
month — good cousin John ! — much ex- 
perience, and much health. Of course 
they wanted to keep me in the house. 
But at the outset I contrived for myself 
some shortish dresses — I did not wear 
the short dress as I am constrained to 
say I ought. A dress, reaching only to 
the knee, with trousers graceful in the 
cutting, the whole suit made of strong 



5^ How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

material — tweed, cheviot, jean, linen — 
is the only sensible and suitable attire 
for a woman doing out-of-doors labor, 
Lou and I have never worn it ; we knew 
we ought — we meant to some day, but 
we never have. We disliked it, aestheti- 
cally; though I am bound to add that 
by reason of wearing the conventional 
dress, we have endured other ills much 
more to be contemned and held odious, 
even from an aesthetic point of view 
than " the Bloomer costume." 

But the inches I did cut off my gown 
rendered out-of-door movements practica- 
ble, and beginning moderately, I worked 
every day with cousin John and the 
boys, never once considering the weather, 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, ^^ 

for I knew that once on our farm we 
must go out, rain or shine. 

I found everything hard, but nothing 
impossible. 

Little Rob and I cut up half a dozen 
acres of corn, unassisted. I also helped 
husk the same, bound my bundles, and 
well, too. At first I was greatly discour- 
aged over this same " binding," as all 
women are : for cousin said he couldn't 
sacrifice too largely to our experiment, 
and that he wouldn't have me in the 
husking unless I could bind my stalks 
as I went. I promised, but it tore and 
wore my hands cruelly, and then the 
bundles upon which I had spent so 
much time and care, often would fall in 



^6 How Two Girls Tried Farmi7ig, 

pieces while I was carrying and setting 
them up. 

I couldnt bind with stalks as men do, 
anyway — neither then, nor at any time 
afterwards. When I came into the field 
in the morning, I would spy about for 
any tall, supple grasses, grown up after 
the last cultivating, and, pulling them 
up, lay in a store for " bands." But my 
weeds were not always to be found ; and 
one day, when I was at quite a loss 
what to do, I espied two German women 
in the neighboring field, occupied like 
myself, and I climbed the fence and 
called upon them, as very properly I 
might, they being the later comers. 
They, I found, had availed themselves 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 57 

of woman's proverbial wit; they showed 
me some balls of coarse twine. 

" Go puy youself some palls of leetle 
rope, and not tear you shmall hands 
mit twisting weeds and marsh hay. It 
do take more time to twist him, than 
it do to earn de leetle rope." 

I returned triumphant, and after that 
bound my stalks, woman-like, with " leetle 
rope." 

After the first few days, I could 
work early and late. Cousin Janet said 
I should surely finish myself up now ; 
and Louise was afraid I would, too. 
But day after day I appeared in my 
corn-field, for I was greatly interested 
in this corn-harvesting experiment, since 



^8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

I felt sure that it was not only the 
grain we should chiefly raise, but that 
it was the grain that a woman could 
most easily cultivate from beginnuig to 
end, if she must do it with no money 
for hiring labor. 

So I persisted. Of course I didn't 
fancy wet stalks, and all sorts of bugs, 
and mice nests, and perhaps a snake, 
in my lap, no more than any other 
woman would. Yet I persisted; and 
there were compensations. 

The vigorous motions required to strip 
and break the ear from the husks, 
and the exercise of binding and carry- 
ing, expanded my chest in the same 
manner as the motions of the move- 




Dollv finds nothing impossible. 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6i 

ment cure, and marvelously strengthened 
shoulder and wrist. My cough ceased. 
The sunlight of the lovely, vaporous 
Indian summer weather, and the sweet 
■air, proved at once a balm and a tonic 
for my irritated lungs and stomach, and 
together with the exercise, invigorated 
my appetite. I used to run down to 
dinner quite as hungry as the boys, and 
bark gleefully " like a wolf " in Janet's 
ears, to show her how ravenous I was, 
until at last the hired man — an old 
Scotchman — said one day to John, who 
was expostulating with me respecting my 
incessant labor : 

" Hoot, mon ! let the lass alone ! gie 
her oatmeal pairrich for her breakfast 



62 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

and let her wark; them as likes wark 
can wark their fill on that ! " 

So they can. Louise and I know that. 
A cup of strong, pure, well creamed 
coffee, with a dish of oatmeal mush 
dressed with cream and sifted sugar, has 
been our daily breakfast for years, though 
I own to always craving and needing a 
thoroughly first-class beefsteak for dinner. 

The old Scotchman's hint has been 
a fortune to us in the matter of solid 
muscle, and perhaps in the way of 
healthy thought also. 

While I was thus growing brown and 
strong out in the sunny fields, I was 
daily learning my business working along- 
side cousin John. I learned the easy 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6j 

way, the " man's way," of holding the 
plow and turning a furrow, and it was 
a proud time for me when Rob and I 
were trusted to plow out the potatoes 
when potato harvest came. I " thanked my 
stars " every day then, as every day since, 
that I had had the energy and the sense 
thus to carry out our enterprise. I was 
taught how to make a proper stack of the 
cornstalks —one that would shed rain — 
and how to build a load — I would 
persist : if I slid off the load, as often I 
did, I would clamber back ; and I picked 
apples day after day, until no possible 
height on the ladder could turn me 
giddy. I drove the mower to cut the 
seed clover; I could, in my scant skirts. 



6/f How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

I learned to milk fast and clean, how 
to feed and care for stock, and how to 
swing an ax and file a saw ; and if I did 
sometimes quite wear out John and old 
Donald widi my questions, and with 
being in the way, and with the general 
bother of a girl mixed up with the work, 
Lou and I don't know that we care, t 
would " tag round " all day at cousin's 
heels with his little boys, who thought 
it great fun to go out and work with 
Dolly, and who among them taught me 
almost as many things as their father 
did ; and then at night I sat in the 
rocking-chair and questioned John about 
sheep, and wool, and lambs, and hay- 
making, and afterward thoughtfully com- 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6^ 

pared what he had said with the Rural 
and the Agriculturist, 

Cousin paid me my wages by going 
over to our farm and plowing up every 
rod of it, save the door-yard and wood- 
lot. He protested against the nonsense 
of "fall plowing;" but I insisted, talking 
" cut-worms " and the magic harrows of 
the winter frosts. He protested still 
more loudly because I bargained for 
every load of barn-yard compost which 
the farmers for ten miles around would 
sell and deliver spread upon our plowed 
land — to " winter waste," they said ; 
and the neighbors all called me a 
" headstrong girl " because after making 
the land so rich I would not "take a 



66 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

wheat-crop off" when I "seeded it." 
But Lou and I knew a wheat-crop was 
an affair of money, men, and teams 
from beginning to end ; besides, we 
meant to save the entire strength of 
the enriched soil for our future meadows. 

Many a sly dig did I get about my 
stubbornness. 

" Have ye bought yer team yet, Miss 
Shepherd '^. " Thus a friendly neighbor. 

Miss Shepherd is saved the trouble of 
reply, by cousin John. 

" A team ? Dolly an't a-goin' to bu}^ 
no team ; she's a-goin' to work her 
farm with idees^ 

Well, why not ? — if I can. 

So, pursuant to John's theory of 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6j 

" idees," I question and question, and 
read and read, until I have learned 
the routine of the main farm crops, the 
number of days' work per acre of both 
men and horses, cost of seed, and prob- 
able average, and probable market value, 
of yield. I also learn the daily amount 
of food consumed by each of the meat- 
making animals, together with the usual 
market prices of the different meats, and 
also the best time and aQ:e to sell. 

When winter came, I returned to my 
ancient employment. My school-keeping 
wages paid my debts to the farmers ; 
and with the surplus I bought out cou- 
sin's hennery entire — the fowls and the 
guano — together with a pretty pair of 



68 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

Poland pigs. Lou had purchased grass 
and clover seed, and had learned to 
drive ; and as I knew how to milk, and 
April was near at hand, we bought a 
load of hay, handsome horse. Pampas, 
and gentle cow, Maggie, gathered up 
all the old tools cousin had given us, 
even to an awl and a draw-shave, pur- 
chased some spades and a beautiful new 
double-shovel plow — ah, no woman ever 
looked more approvingly on her new 
piano than we did upon our trim little 
plow in its gay red paint and its ar- 
ray of shining shares — we wouldn't 
have had a drop of rain fall on it for 
dollars ! — and went down home. 

And here a blessing upon the gray 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 6g 

heads of cousin Janet and cousin John 
is surely in order ; for a portion of 
everything in their house was sent with 
us, from a bag of flour and a ham 
down to a tiny sack of salt and the res- 
idue of my oatmeal, from a load of nurs- 
ling fruit trees down to a bundle of 
currant brush and a peony root ; and, 
last of all, a lovely little cat, "to purr 
and sit in your lap, and make it seem 
like home in the evenino^." 

That was what little cousin Jamie said 
as he reached up and put it in my 
arms after we were seated in the waQ:on. 

Well, it was a bare little house after 
we had done our very best with it, and 
had it not been our own we should not 



'/o How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

have thought we could stay. We had 
spent all our money on the land, and 
for tools and " live stock," so that there 
was really nothing left for the house. 
Perhaps this fact — that we had bestowed 
so little thought upon the house itself, 
had really felt so little concern about it — 
will prove to those who search to see 
this thing, the unfeminizing influence 
of following a masculine pursuit. How- 
ever, were we not wise, true, brave, strong.^* 
We must not, no more than man, put 
in peril the bread-and-butter item of the 
plan. 

But we felt all that any woman could 
demand of us, that first evening. There 
was not one bright thing in the room 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, yr 

except the crackling fire, and Louise 
with her ofolden hair and crimson cheeks. 
Such a home-made home as it was ! I 
had braided a great rug, and that turned 
out to be the only bit of carpet we had 
for four years. Our window-shades were 
of newspapers, scalloped, and adorned 
with much elaborate scissors-work. We 
had three chairs, antiquated specimens, 
that I had brought down from cousin's 
wood-house chamber, cushioned and 
draped with some of our old gown skirts, 
and the trouble we had, to be sure, with 
those chairs, because we could not step up 
on any one of them to reach things ! We 
used a stand in place of table, for which 
Lou contrived a leaf — poor self-deprecating 



7-? How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

Lou, who, I am sure, might have stood 
and faced the world alone as a carpen- 
ter — and we slept upon an old-fashioned 
bedstead which Janet had given us. We 
owned three plates and a platter, as 
many knives and fork^, cups and saucers; 
John said if we had company Lou and I 
could wait, which we did. The rest of 
our in-door possessions consisted of some 
odd kettles, a score of shining new 
milk-pans, a couple of sweet new cedar 
pails, a broom, a small pile of books in 
blue and gold, a trunkful of magazines 
— unbound but precious — an etching 
of Evangeline, and a splendid engraving 
of Longfellow sitting in a rocking-chair, 
and Lou's watch: that, truly, was every- 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, yj 

thing we had to put into that great, 
rambling old house. 

However, we both still think it was 
better to have bought the clover seed. 

The first evening was a strange ex- 
perience. I remember just how oppress- 
ive the silence became after everything 
was done, and we sat down. Finally, 
Lou cried, and I laughed. Then pres- 
ently we felt how absurd it was to be 
like this in our own house ; and we 
cheered ourselves with the pussy and 
the fire, and said we would subscribe 
for a newspaper. And pretty soon, all 
was going well. 

In due time cousin John came again, 
and gang-plowed the fields we had de- 



7-^ How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

voted to clover. Then he lent us his 
team, and Lou and I harrowed and har- 
rowed. Then we sowed our clover and 
timothy, our red-top and blue grass and 
orchard grass, all according to the pro- 
portion and measure sent us, because we 
wrote and asked for it, by the N. Y. 
Tribune, We followed the receipt so 
thoroughly that John was fain to swear 
at our wastefulness. There was required 
double the quantity which any farmer in 
that vicinity had ever sowed upon his 
land. But we bought and sowed it. I 
didn't believe, even then, that there was 
need for such spotted meadows as I had 
observed — the clover growing in distinct 
patches and tufts, the grasses coarse 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. 75 

sparse, and wiry ; I wanted some fine, 
sweet grasses. I will say here that I 
was rewarded for my faith in liberal 
seeding; for owing to that, and to the 
plentiful winter dressing, and the fine 
seed-bed we made of all the fields, our 
pretty trefoil came up all over like wheat, 
or a lettuce-bed, and our grasses are fine, 
thick, and sweet, and the farmers, the 
big farmers of hundred-acre fields, came 
to look at our little meadows and mar- 
vel at our clover, and cut samples of 
our orchard grass to take away for show. 
Of course we did not enjoy these tri- 
umphs, these results of " working our 
farm with idees " — oh, no ! 

Even the big hill whose barren sandy 



7<5 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

top was everywhere visible, which every- 
body said could never " be seeded down," 
is covered to its very top-tip with ten- 
derest grasses and sweetest clovers ; 
and often of a summer morning we see 
Pampas standing there, high against the 
clear northern sky, serene with his sat- 
isfaction over his dewy breakfast — "a 
statue to our spunk," Lou says. 

And then, waiting for May days and 
corn-planting, we began work in earnest 
In our brief dresses, in which Louise 
said she felt "so spry," rejoicing in 
loose bands and in shoulder-straps and 
blouse waists to a degree that would 
have delighted Miss Phelps, we shoul- 
dered our axes and our dinner-pails, a 



How Two Girls Tried Farmi7ig. yy 

la lords of creation, and went over to 
our bit of forest to get up " the year's 
wood," after the manner of the model 
householder. 

I will allow you just a moment in 
which to fancy us vainly attacking huge 
logs, and then tell vou we were simply 
thinning out the young trees. It really 
was not a difficult task to fell them. 
Afterwards we constructed a couple of 
rude, strong saw-bucks, and sawing dili- 
gently, day after day, we at last had a 
supply for months piled neatly in the 
green recesses. 

After that came fence-mending, yes, 
and io^nce^makijig, for we were obliged 
to have sixty rods of entirely new fence. 



y8 How Two Girls Tried Fa^nnhig, 

We found that our own woods had been 
thoroughly denuded of " rail timber," and 
further, that even in this comparatively 
new country, a board fence already had 
become cheaper than one of rails, when 
it came to buying materials outright. 

This was the result of Lou's inquiries 
at the village lumber yards. 

" And," added she, " the fences, even 
at these rates, will cost almost as much 
as the land did. Just think of it ! Well, 
now, there is a country saw-mill three 
miles up north ; of this fact a man would 
take advantage." 

" And why not we ? " 

The next day, in our new, gay little 
wagon we set off over the hills. There 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, yg 

was a quizzical light gleaming in the 
black eyes of the proprietor of the mill 
as he came forward to listen to our 
inquiries ; but it mattered little to us — 
we had become accustomed to quizzical 
liorhts. He soon found that we meant 
" cash down," and we found that by 
buying logs and hiring them sawed we 
should compass a saving of fifteen dollars. 
" And now, Dolly," said Louise on the 
way home, " I shall draw those boards 
myself. Those mill-men look good-na- 
tured — they will load for me. You and 
I together can lift off the wagon-box, 
and I have studied out how to lengthen 
the reach with a false one. I can ride 
nicely on the reach going, and on the 



8o How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

boards coming back. Nothing shall be 
wanting on my part, Dolly." 

It is not pertinent to the history of 
this experiment how people stared to. 
see little Louise riding by upon a wagon- 
reach. She took care, wisely, to look 
very pretty, and I believe it was thought 
rather " cunning " than otherwise ; she 
and her yellow-striped wagon and her 
spirited roan horse were all upon such a 
little scale, " and all of us sandy-com- 
plexioned," she laughingly said as she 
started. 

I worried greatly for fear she would 
fall off " the reach," but by noon she 
was safely back with her little load of 
boards. Encouraged by her brave smile 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 8i 

[ ventured to think we might unload. 
And we did. 

" No harder than dancing several hours, 
Dolly," Lou said cheerily. " And saving 
our money serves much the same pur- 
pose as the music, don't it } " 

Next day ditto, and the next, and the 
next. 

" There ! " said the little teamster, as 
she surveyed the boards scientifically 
scattered up and down the lines of 
future fence. " There, Dolly, we have 
saved the twenty dollars with which be- 
comingly to accept the inevitable — a 
woman ca7inot dig post-holes and set 
posts ! " 

No, indeed! 



82 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

The post-setting accomplished, we 
bouo:ht our fence-nails, and with our 
hammers and saws went out to build 
fence. We built it, too, notwithstanding 
masculine wisdom assured us we could 
not. We lifted the boards by uniting 
strength, I held them against the post 
close to Lou's accurate red chalk marks 
— it is Lou who has the correct eye — 
and she drove the nails. During which 
we found that the fifteen dollars saved 
was the margin for straight edges, uni- 
form width, freedom from bark, immu- 
nity from knot-holes, and the general 
superiority of art over nature, town over 
country. 

We also took down and relaid the 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. 8j 

entire roadside fence, not accomplishing 
all this, of course, without countless 
resting-spells ; the fibre that endures, the 
power of giving blow and bearing strain, 
is of painfully slow growth. We did it, 
as everything else, little by little. 

The fence-mending done, we attempted 
another bit of thrift. We harnessed 
Pampas to the little wagon, for which 
we ourselves had constructed a light 
extra box to place atop the other, and 
then we drove up and down our estate 
— Lou practicing in the art of stand- 
ing to drive, the while — through the 
woods and through the grubby residue 
which John couldn't plow, cutting our 
wagon-roads as we went, often both 



8^^ How Two Girls Tried Farmi^tg. 

jumping out to roll aside a log, rolling 
and blocking, rolling and blocking until 
we had conquered, and thoroughly 
" picked up " the place, bringing back 
to the door load after load of sticks 
and limbs and chips for summer wood. 

There were three acres of this una- 
vailable residue. While we were load- 
ing, we often paused to contemplate it. 
It was covered by a growth of white 
oak grubs ; old stumps and knotty logs 
had been rolled down upon it, and it 
had been made a dumping ground for 
stones and for the mountainous piles of 
brush from former clearings. 

" Here Dolly dear, is our knittiug 
work ! " Lou said one day. 




" Knittinsf-work." 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 8y 

Just that it was for two years. When 
no other work pressed, we "logged." 
That is, we cut down grubs — trimming 
up the tallest to mend fence with — and 
piled the brush, old and new, around 
the logs, dragging the stumps into piles 
of two and three by means of Pampas, 
and a big chain ; many a summer night 
have we tended our big bonfires over 
there, with pussy-cat frisking about our 
steps ; twice have we had the whole 
place on fire and the neighborhood out 
to save the fences and put out the flames 
— what we do not know and cannot do 
in the way of " whipping out " a fire is 
really not worth any woman's while. 
In fact, our daily life those first years 



88 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

was so truly primitive, and seemed such 
a bit of delightful outlawry from the 
conventional house-life of our sex, that 
Louise often said : 

" We might as well be gypsies, Dolly, 
and live in the hedge ! " 

Meantime, other things were happen- 
ing. We had tried a bit of the news- 
paper gardening: Louise and I had 
agreed we would try almost everything. 
It was a proud day when Louise, with 
me standing by to see her, first set her 
little sturdy woman's foot on the spade 
and slowly drove it home and as slowly 
brought up and turned over a big slice of 
earth. She knocked it to pieces as it fell. 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 8g 

''That dirt is otirs, Dolly," she said 
gaily. I looked at it vaguely, yet some- 
how feeling very rich. 

So we had a bit of garden ground 
made ready, while the farmers about us 
sat by their fires in the belief that it 
was yet winter; and, presently, underneath 
a thin coverlet of straw, and the light 
roof of some loose cornstalks, up and 
down the sunny south side of the se- 
lected o:arden site, we had lettuces and 
peas and onions growing greenly, right 
in the midst of snow-storms. It was a 
pretty sight, after a light April snow, 
to run up there and take a peep in and 
see them all smiling up at us with 
such a live, cheery, undaunted look, as 



go How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

if to say, " We are very comfortable, 
thank you, and as busy as we can be ! " 
It made us cheery. We were Hke two 
children. Every day we hovered about 
this first gardening, this premature bit 
of summer, which we had evoked as 
from fairy-land. It was such a wonder- 
ful thing to us, as wonderful as the tel- 
egraph, to ask a question of Nature — 
a question wrapped up in a tiny brown 
seed, or a brown bulb, or a little with- 
ered, wrinkled bean — and be answered 
thus. 

But another development in our af- 
fairs was not so encouraging. Pampas, 
upon acquaintance, was proving to be an 



How Two Girls Tried Inarming, gi 

extreme conservative, who preferred that 
things should run on in the old ruts. 
He had been born in the purple; and 
as soon as he learned that he had prob- 
ably become involved for life in the 
problem of woman's independence, his 
discontent threatened us serious trouble. 
Having been accustomed to a town car- 
riage-house he did not take kindly to 
our rustic accommodations, althouorh his 
good breeding, while he supposed himself 
merely on a visit, led him to accept 
them courteously ; but of late we had 
been wakened, and lain trembling to hear 
him pawing and knocking on the sides 
of his stable in the dead of night — our 
horse — what were we to do with him.? 



g2 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

" I will whip him for that," Louise 
said at last. 

He had never drawn any vehicle save 
a light phaeton, or worn any but the 
daintiest trappings, and he hated our 
harness, and never would accept the 
bits without a protest; and of late he 
had shown his contempt for our pretty 
wagon by a series of short runs back 
and forth whenever he was put in the 
thills ; and now he was resorting to sud- 
den jumps, and to standing straight 
upon his hind feet in the desperate 
struggle to free himself. 

" I will whip him for this, too ! " said 
Louise one day, after dismounting to go to 
his head and lead him on for the seventh 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, pj 

time, from the load of wood which he 
had vainly tried by rearing and plung- 
ing to overturn. I looked at his ugly 
mouth champing the bits so restively, 
and at his unloving eye, and I fancied 
little brief Louise whipping him ! I 
should have laughed had I not been so 
fearful she would do as she said — that 
being a habit she has. 

One day when he wouldn't "back," 
she kept her word. 

She jumped down from the wagon, 
went to his head, led him out into an 
open space, told me to come along, and 
throwing off her sun-bonnet, took the 
whip. 

" Now back, Pampas ! back ! " 



g4 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

Not a step. Nothing but that fierce 
champing 

" Back, I say ! back ! " She tries to 
force him back with all her strength — 
and her white, firm arm and shoulder 
have strength. But Pampas champs and 
plants his feet, and then tries to make a 
little run at her, and I cry out. She 
crushes him back, the veins standing out 
on her little brown fists like cords. 

She is white enough now : " Get into 
the wagon, Dolly," she says, without 
looking round, " and pull on the lines ! " 

I clamber in, and while she tries again, 
I pull, and cry, " Back ! back ! " with all 
my weak voice. It is an excited feminine 
shriek, and it sounds as if I was afraid 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, p5 

and was about to break down and cry, 
when in reality I am as brave and 
as angry as Louise. 

She tells him once more. Then she 
forces the bits back, and she raises the 
whip, and she brings it down upon his 
breast fiercely and fast, and cries, " Back, 
Pampas ! " Pampas rears ; the taint of 
mustang blood shows itself now; he raises 
her clear from the ground, but he can 
neither knock her down nor shake her 
off — oh! how ugly he looks. 

The whip comes swift and fierce. 
" Back ! back there ! back ! " And I am 
as angry as she. I don't care if we 
both do get killed, and I pull and she 
cries to him, and all at once he does 



g6 How Two Girls Triea Farming. 

back — runs back swift and hard. She 
holds fast. " Brace yourself if you can ! " 
and then we bring up against the fence, 
and I sit down suddenly, and then am 
thrown forward over on the dash-board. 
He plunges, but little Lou holds him 
there. She can hold him. Then, after 
a little, she allows him to come forward, 
a few steps at a time, breathing hard 
and stepping high. He stands and paws, 
and looks, oh, how furious ! 

Lou takes breath a moment. " This 
never'll do ! " she says, and tells me to 
get out. She springs in while I try to 
hold him as she did ; he evidently thinks 
he can trample me down. 

" Now, don't be frightened ! " she says 



^ ■ 


■ ^>^?w?''^^?-^^i^-? 


- f "' . 


.'./ ^ ' •..•.■ 


V* ^ •.■^ 






















Pampas shows his mustang blood. 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, gg 

with a sudden sweet smile at me. "The 
harness is strong, and I can hold him; 
let go now ! " 

I try to let go, and he gives a 
plunge, nearly knocking me over, and 
shoots out at the open gate, just as 
Lou meant. Up the road they go, Lou 
bare-headed, her golden fleece of hair 
floating straight behind her. I can see 
her whipping him up the long hill. 
He plunges — I can see the long bounds 
of the wagon — kicks, breaks into a 
run again, and the next minute they 
are out of sight, and the Kromers all 
come out to the gate to look. I can 
hear them for a little while over on the 
other road, the wagon rattling and 



100 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

bounding once or twice, and then there 
is nothing more to be heard. 

They are gone an hour. I try to 
get dinner, but I cannot see, for tears. 
I let one of our plates fall and break. 
I let the meat burn. I wring my hands 
and walk the floor. At last I am just 
tying on my sun-bonnet to go and see 
what I can find, when suddenly I think 
I hear wheels. I run to the door. I 
did hear wheels. It is Louise, coming 
the other way. They have evidently 
been round the big square, of a thous- 
and acres, more or less. Pampas is walk- 
ing meekly. He is covered with sweat 
and foam — such a sorry-looking beast ! 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. loi 

Lou sits on the seat, serene, but white 
and large-eyed. 

She smiles to me as they pause in the 
gateway. She composedly backs him a 
little. Then they come on again a few 
steps, then she stops him. She backs 
him again. 

" See ! don't he know his master ? " 

He looks so meek and sorry. I think 
he would like to lay his nose against 
my cheek, but she will not let me pet 
him, not ever so little. 

How we congratulate ourselves ! for 
the neighborhood has for the last fort- 
night plainly been of the opinion that 
" them two girls have no business with 
a horse ! " 



T02 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

But the next morning, while we are 
at breakfast, we hear the old rino:ine 
hoof-blows upon the side of the barn. 

Louise jumps up and takes down thc 
whip, and I follow her. It is very dread- 
ful to me that we two gentle, intelligent 
girls, cannot coax and win and govern 
a horse according to theory. Pampas 
starts as Lou unlatches the stable door. 
He turns his head. He sees her, sees 
the whip, and he — yes, he actually 
falls upon his knees. 

Lou nods at him meaningly, lays 
down the whip, tells him to get up 
which he does, tells him to go to eat- 
ing, which he does. 

" There, old fellow ! " she says, and 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, loj 

then it is her turn to tremble. She 
turns to the fresh air, leans against the 
stable door a moment, white and sick. 

After this, for nearly a week, Pam- 
pas trembles when he hears her coming. 
Once or twice he has to be shown the 
whip at a time when his memory bids 
fair to fail him concerning the art of 
backing, but the seriousness of the trouble 
is over with ; and at last I am permitted 
to pet him again. 

Yes, it is very dreadful to me that we 
cannot coax and win and govern a horse 
according to theory. ' I cannot reconcile 
the fact with my cherished traditions, 
with my ideals of the horse — but it is 
a fact that we are disappointed in the 



104 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

" noble creature." It is a fact that Lou 
does not love her horse. Perhaps it is 
because she does not respect him. She 
says he is not frank, or generous, or 
sunny, that he is selfish. He calls to 
her when he hears her step, for an ear 
of corn, but he fails to look glad, or 
turn his head lovingly at the touch of 
her hand; perhaps he is conscious that 
she disapproves of his wastefulness in 
eating his hay. To me he is kind in 
a certain lofty manner. For me he will 
bend his strong neck and patiently wait 
while I awkwardly pull his head-stall 
into position. For Lou he will not stoop 
that neck an inch. Once, when Lou 
came home sick, and I tremblingly took 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 105 

my life in my hands and led him to 
pasture, he kindly waited — yes, waited 
intelligently — while I got all the bars 
down, and then carefully stepped over 
the pile, turned and held his head low 
for me to pull off the halter — then 
was off. With his master, it is his cus- 
tom to paw and curvet while the first 
bar is being shoved, then, in a flying 
whirl, to alight, at great peril to the sun- 
bonneted head, on the other side where, 
still curvetting, he is held until the halter 
is slipped, when he is off and away ; 
and standing in the back door, trembling 
for Lou's safety, I hear his heels swiftly 
beating the grassy hillside in the wild 
prairie gallop none of the neighbors, 



io6 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

horses ever indulge in, but I do not 
breathe until Lou comes in sight down 
the lane. 

No, we cannot make a pet and com- 
panion of our horse. 1 am afraid of 
him — Lou is merely his master. She 
is his master. In the matter of Pampas 
she makes no concessions to her wom- 
anhood. He does not stand in his sta- 
ble in winter-time until he is unman- 
agable. No matter how electric the 
air, each morning he is led out and 
exercised, and I stand at the pantry 
window with my heart in my mouth, 
while he flies in swift circles about the 
hooded little figure which urges him to 
still wilder evolutions. She never puts 



Hozv Two Girls Tried Farming. lo^ 

off going to town because it is keen and 
frosty, and Pampas will be sure to " act 
bad." Trembling, but determined she 
shall not meet her fate alone, I prepare 
to go too, braving the penalty of a 
stiff neck for days to come, in my ner- 
vous anxiety lest a team came up behind 
us unawares, sending Pampas into the 
air like an Indian arrow, and off, often 
to be stopped only by reining him 
straight out of the road into a fence 
corner. The solicitous men of the team 
behind, stop, alight, come to our rescue, 
but Lou calmly puts aside all proffers of 
assistance, until it comes to be a recog- 
nized thing on the road, that one is to 
drive quietly on, no matter what trouble 



ig8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

" those girls " appear to be in. And 
then, when we start for home ! ah, 
that moment when I sit with crowding 
heartbeats, while Lou, having untied our 
pawing, tossing steed, gets to my side, 
reins in hand, the best and quickest 
way she can. The men standing about 
offer to hold him, but she will have no 
one at his head — she will not accus- 
tom him to that. What " silver threads " 
I have, I owe, I think, to beholding 
Lou clambering about over on the thills, 
now to fasten up the check-rein which 
the tossing head has unloosed, now to 
recover the " lines " which he has jerked 
or whisked from her hand. I am never 
at rest after she sets forth. Once she 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, log 

accompanied her horse in a mad leap 
across the railroad track, under the 
very nose of the rushing locomotive ; 
once he whirled and threw her from 
the wagon, but she was picked up with 
the reins wound securely round her 
little fist, and drove home alone, " black 
and blue " with bruises, yet still master. 
But she does not love Pampas — nor 
Pampas her. 

By this time the money capital of 
the enterprise had become entirely ex- 
hausted, and we were left dependent 
upon the butter and eggs of our plan. 
We met the issue cheerfully. During 
our first week at cousin Janet's we had 



no How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

found that these staples were not going 
to bring us any such prices as we had 
counted upon. We could only trust 
that there might be such a resource as 
making good the deficiency in prices 
by the production of larger quantities. 
We experimented with the feed of our 
hens — our fascinating hens — and at 
last we did succeed in bringing what 
Louise called " a perfect storm of eggs." 
Yes — our fascinatins: hens. For we 
were perfectly absorbed in our pursuit 
— each day, each simple busy day was 
an enthusiasm. To rise betimes, to have 
breakfast just ready when Lou came 
in from milking, and meantime to have 
skimmed the cream, and fed the hens 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, iii 

— why we put both heart and mind into 
it. The busy days were long with pleas- 
ure — the pleasure of successful toils. 
Perhaps, one must feel this way about 
any labor to make it a satisfying success. 
Even our hens were fascinating, as I 
said. They were the brightest, busiest, 
cheerfulest little bodies, complaisant indi- 
viduals, interesting acquaintances, every 
one. I knew the peculiar crow, and 
cackle, and cluck of each member of my 
small army of happy stay-at-homes, whom 
the neighbors blessed and wondered at 
alternately. Mr. Kromer and Mr. Hooper 
sowed their great wheat fields close up 
on either side of our narrow strip of a 
farm, and went home and slept serenely, 



112 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

and we ourselves neither picketed our 
garden nor stood guard over tomatoes 
and strawberries. After the wheat was 
harvested and drawn into the barn, Mr. 
Hooper came to say that we " might turn 
our hens in." Being thrifty, we were duly 
grateful. We should need to buy no 
more corn and " middlings." The wheat 
field would subsist them for weeks. The 
eggs would be " a clear gain." 

So we went out and invited our vir- 
tuous and now -to -be -rewarded fowls, an 
easy matter since they generally formed 
into a long silent pattering procession at 
the tail of my gown whenever I appeared. 
Little and big, chattering as they went, 
they followed us up to the field, up and 










A fashionable ''train." 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, ii^ 

in — and also out and back. Thrice we 
went, and thrice we returned — we and 
our hens. 

" They actually don't know enough to 
forage ! " said Lou, half vexed. " Did 
you ever hear of such hens ? " 

We were determined to avail ourselves 
of that wheat — it meant dollars and 
cents to us little farmers. We laid a 
plan, a real woman's plan, and went to 
bed, to rise next morning before light. I 
went into the domicil of my wondering 
little family, and quietly placing my two 
hands on their plump unsuspecting sides, 
(I could walk up to any one of them 
in the broad day-light of out-of-doors and 
lift them in my hands, to be rewarded 



tt6 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

with a soft nestle-down and a little pert 
side look from a bright eye, both mo- 
tions dainty as a canary's) I took them 
from the roost, and handed them, one 
by one, outside to Lou who slipped them 
into a covered bushel basket. When the 
basket was full we two thrifty farmers took 
it up by the ears, tugged it up to the 
wheat field, climbed the fence, lifted over 
our heavy, fluttering, frightened burden, 
and going quite over the hill, emptied 
them out into the soft, dewy dark. " They 
had had no breakfast," we reasoned, 
" and of course would pick up the wheat ; 
their voices would call the rest; once 
wonted and unfed elsewhere, they would 
take possession, and with the money 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, iiy 

saved we would buy a handsome blanket 
for Pampas." 

Alas, and alas ! Stumbling back in the 
dark, before we reached the fence, sped 
past us on a winged run, screaming at 
the top of their voices, our hens ; and 
there they stood at the door of their 
house on our arrival, a frightened hud- 
dling heap, waiting to be let in — " hope- 
lessly well fed," Lou said. 

They were well-fed — we fed them 
" with idees " — that is, we fed them chem- 
ically — but the fine, chopped green veg- 
etables, now lettuce, now cabbage, now 
onions, now fruit, the coarse meats 
bought at market, the varied grains, with 
constant " middlings " stirred up with hot 



ii8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

water — now with a dust of cayenne 
pepper, now of salt, now of sulphur, the 
constant supply of plaster and bones, 
and the constant supply of fresh water, 
brought us the desired result — eggs the 
year round, a supply in winter as well 
as in summer. To be sure we earned 
them, but we had not committed the 
fatal mistake of supposing we should get 
things on our farm without earning 
them. From first to last we have de- 
spised that man's way of setting down 
and making a calculation of the interest 
on the money invested in the farm and 
the tools, and the stock, and the wages 
of himself and his team per day, and 
then, after adding up the yield of his 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, iig 

farm, declaring that one was making 
nothing, but really running behind. As 
if a happy daily life were not the very 
best one could get out of money and 
labor, any way ! 

Our butter experience was not quite 
so encouraging. Knowing it costs no more 
to keep the good cow than the poor 
one, we had paid an extra price and 
had secured one of extra excellence, 
upon whom our meal and " middlings " 
were not wasted: gentle Maggie, with 
her little Maggie of still more precious 
blood in the stall adjoining. Louise 
lavished upon her all the affection that 
by right of romance should have gone 



120 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

to Pampas ; and Maggie returned it 
with all that intelligence and attach- 
ment Pampas did not show — just as 
dogs have disappointed us while cats 
never have. 

She was all that a short-horned, yel- 
low-skinned, slender-footed, black-nosed 
little cow can be ; and we never blamed 
her because our butter brought us only 
twenty-five, twenty, eighteen, fifteen, twelve 
and a half cents per pound ; such is the 
descending scale from March to June. 

We make, I have been persuaded, the 
veritable *' gilt-edged " butter of the Bos- 
ton and Philadelphia markets. It is 
sweet, fragrant, sparkling, golden-tinted, 
daintily salted, and daintily put up ; but 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 121 

even from the most fastidious private 
buyers we never have received above 
thirty cents per pound, and during the 
greater portion of the summer have sold 
it for fifteen cents, and twelve cents, the 
same price which Mrs. Kromer receives 
for her soft, lardy-looking rolls ; perhaps 
that is the most aggravating part of it ! 
The finer grades of butter, it seems, are 
not appreciated by the western citizen 
and his family. Making inquiries in 
Detroit and Chicago, we learn there is 
no special trade in these extra grades, 
and that, if offered, they could not be 
placed at anything like eastern prices. 
And while eastern families are ac- 
customed to pay from thirty to forty 



122 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

cents per dozen for eggs, we have never, 
even in winter, secured over twenty-five 
cents for the fresh-laid, while in the 
plenteous summer time we sell for ten 
cents. 

In due time also we found that our 
black-cap raspberries would reall}^ go for 
ten cents per quart, and the bulk of our 
strawberries for the same. We aban- 
doned forever the " small fruits " item of 
our plan, so far as income was con- 
cerned. We have our Wilson and 
Jocunda beds, where, wuth many a back- 
ache and many a dizzy headache, with 
hotly glowing brow and scorched hands 
— since strawberries to be spicy and 
sweet must be picked dry in the mid- 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 12^ 

day sunshine — we grow those great, 
rich-hearted scarlet and crimson berries, 
berries which are chronicled as marvels 
by grateful editors, berries that one 
must need slice for the table; but they 
are never for sale, thank you ! One 
must pay for every strawberry one raises 
its full money's worth in labor, nor will 
strawberries ever be cheaper. 

The raspberries are more satisfactory, 
the needed labor coming only at regular 
intervals. Under our systematic treat- 
ment, on the same plantations they yield, 
year after year, bountifully and uniformly, 
and we have them for plentiful use the 
year round, as farmers have apples — and 
how those farmers' wives with nothing 



12^^ How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

but apples envy us — and we can them 
wholesale, picking them by the pailful, 
cooking them in a great boiler, dipping 
them with a big dipper into great stone 
jars holding three or four gallons, and 
sealing up with the sweet and winey 
crimson lusciousness, bird songs and 
dewy mornings, the gold-and-rose silences 
of early, lovely August dawns, and all the 
pretty pictures of the little upland plan- 
tation with its tall purple canes, each 
trellised group of three bending greenly 
from its stout bands, black with ripe fruit, 
starred here and there with the little 
white hearts where the birds have been 
breakfasting — the birds that know they 
are welcome and often pick in the same 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. 12^ 

row with me, conscious that I am aware 
it is they who keep the plantation free 
from bug, fly and worm, so free that we 
do not even know what species of crea- 
tures harm raspberry canes. 

So, there were some disappointments, 
yet on the whole an encouraging daily 
success. We doubtless should have done 
better had our land lain near the large 
thickly-settled eastern towns, instead of 
west. But, despite all short comings 
in the way of market prices, we two 
farmers did, by cheerfully ignoring sev- 
eral of the items mentioned by the Labor 
Commission as among the necessities of 
the ordinary family, week by week, make 



126 How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, 

both ends meet — perhaps because we 
sternly balanced accounts every week, 
nay, every day. 

For our very own personal needs, the 
little Arcadian income would really have 
sufficed ; but there always came up some 
thing to be purchased which we had not 
made account of : the pound of nails, the 
pane of glass, a horseshoe to be set, a bit 
of repair upon wagon or tools, the road 
tax, the pleasant little expenses for com- 
pany. It was, indeed, quite a close affair 
those first years. Even in the early 
weeks we dismissed the idea of smoked 
ham and dainty sausage, and devoted 
" Pin-cushion " and " Roly-poly " to the 



How Two Girls Tried Farming. 12*/ 

payment of taxes and the discharge of 
debt for hired labor. 

Ah, Roly-poly — pink-nosed and fat Roly- 
poly of the twinkling legs, predecessor of 
a long line of Roly-polys, each a pet 
in his own time and place — shall we 
ever forget that soft dark spring midnight 
when we were suddenly wakened, how or 
by what we knew not ! At last I became 
conscious of a strange little noise out- 
side, under the window. 

" Hark ! " said Lou, at the same instant, 
sitting up. 

I harked. After due waiting, another 
little scrambling sound, together with a 
low happy grunt. 

Lou groaned. 



128 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

" Those pigs are out, Dolly." 

Yes, unmistakably. 

" Quietly, now," I said, as when all was 
ready we unclosed the door and issued 
forth — each bearing a pan of sour milk, 
cream and all. 

I was proud of my forethought in 
that little matter. Lou, who would have 
taken a lasso and walked fearlessly into 
a herd of Pampas' wild relatives, was 
helpless here. She was content to do 
my bidding meekly. 

" P^ggY' piggy • " ^ called cheerfully. 
" Come, piggy ! " 

Guilty piggy ! He jumped, barked 
like a little dog, and I dimly saw and 
distinctly heard him scampering around 




xi x»in.iiii;iht AdveiitLire. 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, iji 

the corner of the house. But I was only 
too glad to discern thus that only one was 
taking an outing. Carefully bearing my 
pan of milk, I went swiftly around the 
other corner, and met him at the back 
door. Off he ran, but I ignored him. 
I calmly set my pan down by the wood- 
pile, and turned my back. Presently, I 
heard the little waddling form approach- 
ing, nose to the ground, uttering quick, 
delighted little grunts. A moment more, 
and the naughty pink nose was in 
the milk, the naughty fore-paw right in 
the middle of my bright new milk pan. 
Softly I turned. Softly, at a signal, came 
Lou, pouring in her contribution to this 
feast al fresco. 



IJ2 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

Thus reassured, Piggy forgot fear and 
put in both fore-paws; it was then I 
softly bent and seized him, grasping his 
fat little body with both hands — but oh, 
the muscle of even a small pig, the 
weight of the solid little self! he strug- 
gled up, down, outward, backward, kicked, 
squealed as if in mortal pain ; but I was 
already bearing him onward, and Lou, 
behind me, stumbling over the pan of 
milk reached helpfully and seized — not 
the kicking little pig, but my wrist, 
and bearing that on high, almost forc- 
ing me to let go the pig, squeezing it 
unmercifully, determined to not lose her 
hold, kick as he might, I both laugh- 
ing and panting to the extent I could 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, /jj 

not speak to expostulate or explain, we 
reached the pen and tossed Master 
Roly-poly over in beside his sleeping 
mate. Then we restored the lifted door, 
under which he had squeezed through, 
to its place, and went back to the house, 
all in the vague dark — poor Lou so 
mortified and vexed at the way she had 
helped, that she would not speak to me 
until the middle of the next forenoon. 

Well, to go back a little, it was a 
busy busy spring ; a home has to be 
begun in so many directions at once — 
meadow, field, garden, orchard, flowers, 
and shubbery. Ah, that setting of trees ! 
With us "arbor day" stretched through 



I 34- How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, 

weeks; what with pear, apple, peach, 
and cherry, evergreen, lilac, rose, and 
locust, to say nothing of the vines and 
canes. I confess to hours when Lou 
and I toiled side by side in silence, 
digging those holes. Nature is no gallant. 
She has inexorable laws which woman, in 
common with man, must confront. The 
spade in delicate hands must needs be 
driven as deep as the horniest palm can 
thrust it. Protect your white hands as 
you will, if you labor out-of-doors there 
will come upon them brownness, redness, 
and freckle ; there will be cracks, torn 
flesh, " slivers," what not, and upon your 
soft, pink palms, callous, blister, and 
soreness unendurable; a brown, enlarged, 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 135 

useful, and strong hand will be one of 
the penalties of your independence. Also, 
my graceful sisters, who shall essay inde- 
pendence in this field, your slender shoul- 
ders will broaden, you will affect a roomy 
bodice, and your arms will lose their 
tapering contours. As compensation, 
you will come into possession of an ex- 
quisite perception of the purity of atmos- 
pheres, a comfortable disregard of changes 
in the weather, an appetite for fruits 
and vegetables and nourishing steaks, 
and an indifference to injurious season- 
ings and flavorings — you can walk where 
you will, lift what you will, carry for 
long distances, and confidently project 
fresh undertakings. 



1^6 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

Our tree-setting and early gardening 
well out of the way, came our first 
farming proper — corn planting. In con- 
sideration of certain " suits " made for 
his little boys, cousin John sent over 
his horses, plow, and old Donald. Him 
we coaxed to sit under a budding tree, 
and ourselves took possession of the 
horses and plow. I had been longing 
to show Lou what I could do ; and, 
truly at cousin John's I had not thought 
plowing so very terrible. But I found 
our stony, hilly field somewhat different 
from his soft, level garden land. To 
my surprise and hers, instead of walk- 
ing quietly after my horses along my 
straight, loamy furrow, as I had meant 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, /j/ 

and had led her to expect, Lou beheld me 
pulled this way, then that, dragged over 
clods, forced into long strides, the plow 
now lying upon its side, now leaping 
along the surface, until the trained team 
turned their heads in mute inquiry. 

We can plow, as I said, but do not 
think it advisable. Dozens of farmers, 
especially those young farmers who are 
bound to succeed, do not scorn to do 
something outside, and by a job of car- 
pentering, mason-work, threshing-machine, 
or the like, furnish themselves with 
many comforts otherwise unattainable. 
So I trust that we are none the less 
legitimately farmers because by a bit of 
dressmaking, or fine sewing, we hire our 



ij8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

plowing and mowing, and whatever other 
work we please. 

We dragged and marked the four acres 
without assistance. Then we proceeded 
with another item of " that newspaper 
foolery," which, according to John, no 
farmer can afford. We had so often 
been assured that our land wouldn't 
grow corn, we didn't know but it might 
be so, and thought it well to assist the 
soil to the extent of our means. With 
our determined and persistent hoes, we 
composted the guano of the hennery 
with plaster, until it was fine, dry, and 
inodorous. 

Such a task as that was ! 

Lou would stop and lean her forehead, 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, ijg 

wet and red, upon her hoe-handle, and 
utter a bit of the current but kindly 
neighborhood sarcasm. 

" ' Two girls I ' don't you think so, 
Dolly ? " 

Dolly did think so, sometimes. 

Then, with a pail in one hand, and a 
wooden spoon in the other, we each 
went over the field and deposited a 
modicum of this home-made fertilizer 
wherever a hill of corn was to grow. 

Such preliminary work was, of course, 
very tedious. But it made a difference, 
we think, if the opinions concerning the 
state of the soil were correct, of at least 
forty bushels per acre; for the barren 
mullen field yielded us, upon an average, 



7^0 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

ninety bushels to the acre. And let me 
say again that in most instances, as in 
this, it has paid us to " work our farm 
with ideesT Our superior melons and 
turnips, savoys and strawberries, as well 
as our corn crops, are the result of 
special work upon special plans, assisted 
by special fertilizers; in no instance the 
costly ones of commerce, but home-made 
and carefully adapted by means of 
many experiments. 

The fragrant May days passed. Our 
corn shot up its delicate pointed blades, 
our currant and berry settings puffed 
and ruffled themselves from top to toe 
with their little frilled leaves of exqui- 
site green, and each morning there 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, i^i 

was some miraculous development at the 
garden beds. It was a pretty sight of 
a mid-May morning : our " variegated 
foliage " beets, peas, finger high, onion 
beds, rank upon rank of green lances, 
lettuces fit for salad and mayonnaise, 
tomatoes needing trellis, potatoes high, 
thick and green, all freshly hoed and 
sparkling with dew. Ah, it is worth 
while to make garden ! Not that ours 
has ever been particularly early, not that 
we could ever compete with a dozen 
Irish women near us, who raise " truck " 
for the markets. Oh, no ! every season 
one can buy cucumbers when our vines 
are just bestarring themselves with their 
little yellow blossoms; and the groceries 



1^2 How Tzvo Girls Tried Farming, 

are gay with red, ripe tomatoes when 
ours are only " beginning to turn," and 
so on ; and we have quite our share of 
hand-to-hand fight with cut- worm, potato 
bug, striped-bug, ants, the onion fl)^ 
and frost, and drought; but still w.. 
have always had both plenty and perfec 
tion in the end, and a world of simple 
pleasures by the way. 

A little later came " cultivating corn ** 
and this we found to our relief to be 
entirely practicable, although Pampas did 
his best to render cousin John's instruc- 
tions of none effect. Nothing could 
induce him, that first season, to cross 
the field at less than his road pace, his 
naughty, handsome head held aloft, every 



How Two Girls Tried Farmmg, i^j 

few moments breaking into a trot. After 
experimenting with him during one fore- 
noon, we took him down to the stable, 
and I donned my long dress and went 
up to Mr. Kromer's. There I succeeded 
in lending him to take Mr. Kromer a 
journey, and in borrowing in return 
steady old Jane, who would demurely 
walk up and down the rows with me at 
my own leisurely pace. 

We are kept thus busy with hoe 
and cultivator all the summer long. 

We spend few daylight hours in the 
house — the house is still a secondary 
matter — and look on to a snug winter 
in-doors with a zest indescribable. The 
autumn months come on apace, bringing 



1^4 How Two Girls Tried Farming. 

still harder work and greater hurry. 
We cut up our corn, husk it, build a 
homely crib of poles, draw our stalks 
and stack them, thus really mastering 
the corn-crop — dig our potatoes, store 
our vegetables, and chatter rejoicingly 
like two squirrels as we heap up our 
winter cheer. 

As the long, cold winter finally closes 
us in, we look cheerily from our win- 
dows out upon the world. Of course 
some strange, abnormal labors fall to 
our lot ; there are paths to be shoveled 
through the snow, Pampas and the Mag- 
gies to be daily led forth to water, sta- 
bles to be kept in wholesome order. 
But we do it, therefore others can. 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 145 

The in-door coseyness, the sense of in- 
dependence, fully reward us for it all. 
There is no enjoyment quite like that 
which quietly comes as the lot of thrift 
and industry. We have succeeded in 
avoiding all debt save that which in due 
time the well-fattened Polands cancel. 
Maggie, feeding through the fall upon 
our golden pumpkins, enables us, with 
her beautiful butter, to fill the winter 
flour barrel ; and a surplus of potatoes 
purchases a store of groceries. Eggs, 
week by week, supply " items." A day's 
work — O, such a lovely day's work — 
of picking apples " upon shares " in the 
Kromer orchards has filled the tiny apple 
bin. During the brief leisures, various 



146 How Two Girls Tried Farmmg. 

pieces of sewing provide hay for Pampas. 
Spring finds us not in debt, and more 
hopeful than ever of " our plan." 

Year after year we live on after this 
fashion, tugging away at great labors 
and knowing few leisures, but kept 
cheery by the thought that we have 
already lived so comfortably so long, 
cooing away to ourselves we are not in 
debt, that our plan bids fair of success, 
until we begin to hear, on this hand and 
on that : 

" Why, how prosperous those girl 
farmers are ! Did you ever see the like ? " 

Then we pause, and look about us, 
and find it is so. The time has come. 
We ourselves see what a green, grassy 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, z^/ 

leafy nest the once despised little farm 
is, with its gardens and its fruit yards, 
its rosy clover meadows, and its rich 
upland pastures. 

We frankly confess to all the world 
that we have not proved equal to the 
much " mixed farming," to the raising of 
general crops, to the personal tillage of 
plow lands, We, however, have been at 
disadvantage, physically. We possess but 
the minimum muscular strength of wo- 
man ; the limits close around about us 
nearly. The tall, long-limbed, and large- 
framed woman, may be far more grandly 
independent. Still, we doubt whether she 
makes much more money than we, in our 
circumscribed, special ways. 



i^}.8 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

However, we can assure those who pre- 
fer to work, rather than " manage," that 
years before our experiment there were 
women, here and there, who were suc- 
ceeding in " mixed farming." There were 
also other women who were able to 
profitably direct large agricultural opera- 
tions. But it is not wisdom to point to 
brilliant successes ; the average woman 
may well be more interested in the other 
average woman, who simply " makes a 
good living " off her land. 

For example, while we were attempt- 
ing our plan, one brave New Hampshire 
woman, for many years had had the 
entire care of an hundred-acre farm. 
She had been previously a sewing-girl, 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, I4g 

giving up her employment on account 
of a cancerous trouble. She began grad- 
ually, assisting her father ; but for twenty 
years she has had the farm in her own 
hands, having perfectly recovered her 
health. 

This woman farmer does all the work 
that any man farmer does, has no help 
except as she " changes work " with her 
neighbors, as men in similar cases do. 
She plows all day, holding the plow, 
while a boy drives, plowing an acre of 
rough land per day, which in her vicinity 
is considered a good day's work. She 
cuts twelve tons of hay annually — mows, 
cures, loads and stores it away herself, 
exchanging work with her neighbors for 



1^0 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

extra help, even as a man would. She 
harrows, plants, hoes and reaps. In 1879, 
she raised thirty bushels of potatoes, do- 
ing all the work from first to last. She 
keeps three cows, last year marketing 
over two hundred pounds of butter. Last 
autumn she picked about two hundred 
and fifty bushels of apples. She draws 
her own wood, sometimes cutting it, and 
always loading and unloading, managing 
her ox team and her sled with the skill 
of a crack teamster. She also does all 
her housework, at present living quite 
alone. Her house is tidy, her buildings 
well kept, and everything has the look 
of being in the hands of a thrifty farmer. 
She enjoys her work, is independent in 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, r^i 

her operations, asking no man's advice. 
She feels no need of advice. 

We have not done all this ; still, sub- 
stantially, we have been " true to the 
early dream." The " golden foot of the 
sheep " is at last on our once barren hill- 
tops. Durham Maggie and Maggie II. 
and Maggie III. and Jersey Daisy feed 
luxuriously upon the deep, sweet grasses, 
and the honeyed clover-blossoms, while 
the cream-rising and the money-making 
go on together in the cool, shadowy milk- 
room day by day. The butter shipped 
in tubs, the choice mutton sheep, the 
fleeces in a load, are not representative 
of a runious and aggravating amount of 
either hired or personal labor, and give 



1^2 How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

us our money in that profitable shape, 
" the lump," and we have built a barn, 
" a love of a barn " — the talk of the 
neighborhood, since it is a genuine 
girl's barn, all stairs and doors, "an 
adorable barn," in fact ; yet we have found 
each of the fourteen doors handy, as our 
Maggies are not imprisoned in stancheons 
but each has her own cosey room with 
its separate outer entrance — there are no 
ugly passage-ways in which to turn and 
"lock horns." 

We think we have been wise. Even 
the " mixed " farmer and strong plow- 
woman of whom I have told you, and 
of whom much more might be profitably 
told, is gradually abandoning her field 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, i^j 

crops for the dairy and for stock raising. 
We think that the care of small flocks 
and herds is an easy, gentle, and 
womanly occupation. We like their 
friendship and their company, and I 
dare say spend much unnecessary time 
with them. Lou carries her neatness 
and love of order into their quarters, 
and the sheep-cote and the barn are 
always pleasant places to visit. I often 
tell her that the sheds, so clean and 
warm and strawy, are as inviting as 
the house, and that I don't see why, for 
hundreds of overworked women, the 
Arcadian time of shepherdesses might 
not profitably come again. 

" I know it, Dolly," answers Louise 



i^^j. How Two Girls Tried Farming, 

earnestly. " I too, have thought of it 
so much. And now that men are com- 
ing more and more to share their occu- 
pations with us, I do wish that some of 
those women who are so tired and rest- 
less and discouraged, and haven't brains 
enough to become doctors and lawyers 
or business women of any kind, and 
yet need money just as badly, could see 
what a pleasant way of living this is. I 
wish we could tell them in some way, 
Dolly, just how we do. We raise nearly 
everything we consume you know, except 
wheat — that is we raise the means to 
buy what we don't raise. It would be 
such a relief, such a restoration to health 
and youth even, to rise in the morning 



How Two Girls Tried Farming, 755 

their own mistresses. This unspoken yet 
ever-uttered " by your leave," is so wear- 
ing. O, I do wish you could tell them 
Dolly ! " 

And Lou's wish is the reason d etre 
of my story. 



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